Automotive vehicles are increasingly being equipped with collision avoidance and warning systems for predicting the potential collision with an external object, such as another vehicle or a pedestrian. Upon detecting a potential collision, such systems typically initiate an action to avoid the collision and/or provide a warning to the vehicle operator. Adaptive cruise control systems have been proposed to track a leading vehicle and automatically control the speed of the following vehicle. The ability to accurately predict an upcoming collision also enables a vehicle controller to deploy safety-related devices on the vehicle. For example, upon predicting an anticipated collision or near collision with an object, the vehicle seat belt pretensioner could be activated in a timely manner to pretension the seat belt, thereby enhancing the application of the safety device. The controller could also deploy a warning signal to notify the vehicle driver of a predicted collision with an object.
In conventional vehicle target tracking systems, the host vehicle is generally equipped with a sensor arrangement that acquires range, range rate, and azimuth angle (i.e., direction to target) measurements for each tracked target within a field of view. The sensor arrangement employed in many conventional tracking systems generally includes a plurality of radar beams or laser beams covering a field of view. In order to track an object, the conventional vehicle target tracking system generally senses the presence of an object, measures the azimuth angle of the object, range to the object, and range rate of the object, all relative to the host vehicle, and tracks movement of the sensed object.
The above-mentioned target tracking systems generally require relative complex and expensive sensor arrangements with several sensors that measure the azimuth angle of the object, relative to the host vehicle, in addition to obtaining range and range rate measurements. The measurement of azimuth angle provides for an indication of the direction from which the target object is approaching, however, conventional azimuth angle measurements generally require expensive and costly sensor arrangements. It is generally desirable to reduce the complexity and cost of systems and components employed in automotive vehicles. It is therefore desirable to provide for a reduced complexity and reduced cost system that is able to track an object.